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General CommentThis song is about how the international banking industry has taken control over civilisation. In order to fully understand the symbolism presented in the lyrics you need a bit of background.

In medieval times it was against the law to practice the lending of money for profit (called usury) - ref Merchant of Venice. However clever minds backed by large donations to the church (ref the renaissance) overcame this problem. At first goldsmiths were responsible for minting new coins, which had a value based upon the material value of the coin itself. To do this safely they had a vault, and as other people wanted to use the vault they would rent out space, and provide the depositor with an IOU. The goldsmiths realised that people did not often come in to withdraw their gold because they were trading the IOUs. The goldsmith then realised that he could not only lend his money, but also the money of his depositors. Most people understand this, but what tehy don't realise is that the goldsmiths went a step further - if nobody was checking that the paper IOUs were backed by depositors gold then he could back them with nothing.

This is the process that modern banks use when they lend. They do not lend the money deposited by other customers, they invent the money. 95% of the money in the world is invented in this way. Therefore pretty much all money in circulation was once borrowed by somebody. Banks are allowed to invent 9 times more money than is deposited, in a system called Fractional Reserving.

The banks then decided to go one step further. They realised the most profit can be made by getting governments rather than people to borrow from them, as governments are backed by the taxation of their population and so less likely to default. In the 1600's in England the Bank of England was commissioned. This was a private bank that would lend money to the government, and then earn money from the interest by keeping that nation in debt. This model worked so well that it has been repeated for almost every other country. In the USA it is known as the Federal Reserve, but it is a private company not a government one. If the US government wants to raise money for a project then rather than inventing the money themselves they must borrow it from the Federal Reserve (who invents it). Then the US taxpayer must pay the interest on it, making the international bankers rich.

*Hungry people don't stay hungry for long
*They get hope from fire and smoke as the weak grows strong

This is a call for revolution, warning governments that unless they remove the power of privately owned central banks then the population will revolt. Particular reference can be made to the great depression of ’29-’33 in both the US and Germany where large amounts of the population were unable to afford to eat due to either the low money supply or hyperinflation. Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was fuelled by the suffering of the German people (focused on the Treaty of Versaille) and paid for by the Federal Reserve.

*The spirit of Jackson
*Now screams through the ruins

Jackson was a US president that presided in the 1800’s. The American war of independence was primarily caused by the law form King George III of England that the American colony was no longer allowed to use their debt-free invented currency (called Colonial Scrip) but instead had to borrow money from the Bank of England — which would immediately place America under the financial control of England and the international bankers. Benjamin Franklin was key in spotting and opposing this. However the international bankers did not give up and over the course of the next two hundred years tried to install a privately owned central bank which would have the power to create money (until then only Congress could do it). Several times they succeeded, but notable presidents such as Lincoln (ref Greenbacks) destroyed the central bank. Jackson was one of the presidents to do it, surviving an assassination attempt in the process.

*Through factory chains
*And the ghost of the union
All money is debt, and so anyone in debt must pay interest rates. As governments are in debt they must pay interest rates as well, and they fund this through taxation. People are tied to jobs where they only get a small percentage of their wages converted into buying power (when you also factor in sales tax, capital gains tax etc to income tax). Not even unions are powerful enough to stop this because higher wages will result in higher taxation meaning that the governments can borrow more.
*Disappear to their new homes
*The knife the thrust
*The life burns to the raw bone
*The blood on the floor of the tear is still dryin

In order for the plan of the international banks to work there must be a reason to borrow money. Individuals will most often borrow money to buy a house or car (gone are the days where people save and spend rather than borrow due to the high prices of these items). Companies will borrow to expand against their competition when they do not generate enough profits to pay for it. However worst of all is that the only reason a government would have to getsignificantly into debt is to pay for a war they must win. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was common practice for the victor to pay the loser’s loans off — and the Rothschild family financed both the British and the French during the Napoleonic wars. It was extremely profitable for the Federal reserve for the USA to enter both World Wars.

*Cover the spreadsheets
*Tha Dow Jones skyin'
Reference to how stock markets generally boom during a war as companies profit from the increased spending by government.

*Cell block livestock
*The bodies they're buyin'

Reference to how we are all prisoners within this system. It is impossible to consider yourself as free from this when a large percentage of your taxes are being used to pay government debt to privately owned banks. I mean how can all the governments in the world be in so much debt all at the same time?

*Old South order
*New Northern horizon
Old South order refers to slavery. New Northern horizon refers to how capitalism has made us slaves.

*Check the high tech terror
It is easy for the international bankers to control the stock market and money supply, as was evidenced by the actions of the Federal reserve in teh 20’s and 30’s. In a computerised system it is even easier to do this as money is mostly electronic. It has been suggested that a government who threatens to remove the current system will be punished with a deliberately caused depression. Remember money is debt, so if a bank recalls debt then the money disappears, contracting the money supply and causing depression. The great depression was caused by Wall street banks all calling in their 24 hour loans (a popular way that people borrowed to invest in stocks and bonds) which resulted in the stock market crash as everyone rushed to sell their assets to meet their obligations. By not relending the money supply could be kept at a low rate.

*Yes the new order athletes
The New World Order was a term referenced by Rockefeller as to who would control a world government. This was a plan put into action, that resulted in the suggestion of a League of Nations being set up (as the first step to a world government who would have to borrow money from a single privately owned bank). Money is power, so a government in debt is the slave to the creditor. This action failed as the US decided to stay out, but was later reintroduced with the creation of the UN.

*Peer into the eyes of the child already on trial
*Armies rippin' families apart
*Get 'em on file
*Convictions fit the stock profile
These next lines are about the control of the population, basically saying you are already under suspicion from the moment you are born. Incidentally Islamic law prevents the charging of interest like Christian law used to. Therefore this system does not exist in Islamic countries. If you were a corrupt banker and you wished to install a central bank in an Islamic country, how would you go about trying to convince the world that the Islamic way is wrong?

*Privatizing through private eyes
Comment on how central banks are not owned by the government but controlled privately. When the First Bank of the US was set up it was created with a price of $10m. $2m of this was purchased by the US government. The international bankers then used this $2m as a deposit through which (using fractional reserving) they created a loan of $8m. They then lent this $8m to themselves and used it to buy the rest of the company. It was never offered publically. Also possibly a double meaning here as the Federal Reserve never have any public discussions or transparency.

For more information see youtube videos:
Money as Debt (and Money as Debt II)
The Money Masters
Zeitgeist : The Federal Reserve

General Commentthe line 'a fire in the master's house is set' is probably talking about destroying the system in which you are forced to exist, i.e. a slave in his master's house, or in non-metaphor terms, a marxist fucking up the bullshit capitalist regime. this song rocks the stratosphere

General Commentthe lines quoted by JujubeParade can be compared with a line in "Maria" in which RATM talks about "a new line of Mason Dixon." Saying that our line dividing the country into slave states and free states
has shifted to a new type of slavery in prison labor.

As always, this song is filled with little cultural references. RATM is very exact in this sense.

The line
"Tha spirit of jackson
now screams through the ruins..."
refers to George Jackson, a young african american sentenced to death. From prison he wrote letters which have been collected and later published.

Things like "privatizing through private eyes" when tied with the rest of the lyrics seems to mean that in the interest of capitalism and corporations´ greed, innocent people are imprisoned.

General CommentOkay everyone, "A fire in the masters house is set" refers to a tactic used by slaves or endentured servants to punish a cruel overseer or master. Arson was virtually impossible to prove or for that matter determine the source of, so therefore it was used to deal death to creul masters.

General Commentelement x, I think that this song is a hidden gem in the album. At first I would just listen to it. Now I skip to it first. I love this song too. I guess we will have to wait for more people to discover it.